London.......this time with dad

By the time we got back to London from paris, it was lunchtime. Jay and I had found the borough markets when we were in London last, so it was time to head back there while walking along the south bank. We had a surprise in store for lunch in the form of an ostrich burger….yuummmm delish! Dad gave his seal of approval! The burgers are so yummmm and full of flavour. We also taste tested some other foods and then unfortunately we had to drag ourselves away from the food to move on……..

As dad hadn’t been back to London in quite some time, we decided it would be worthwhile for all of us to do the ‘big red bus’ around London. The bus is a great way to put things in perspective and to work out what is near what and what tube stations are near the sights and also the distance between different landmarks. We saw lots of sights such as the changing of the guard, Prime Ministers house in Downing street, Trafalgar square, green park, the marble arch, st pauls cathedral, tower bridge and tower of London. The big bus tour also included a river cruise that went all the way up to Greenwich and back. The guide on the boat was politically incorrect and he had a story about every pub up the river and what to do with the kids while you were at the pub….

The next few days in london were spent going back to some of the sights that we had skipped on the big red bus. We went to the Buckingham palace state rooms which are only open a few months of the year and jay and I went and knocked on the queens door for some tea, but unfortunately she wasn’t home….It took quite a few hours to go through the state rooms and there was a special exhibition on the royal wedding to mark the 60^th wedding anniversary of queen Elizabeth. They had all the wedding outfits, including her wedding dress and various gifts that they had received. We were also able to walk through the gardens and buy some tacky royal souvenirs on the way out!

Next day, it was time to explore and climb St Pauls Cathedral and what a climb it was. I wasn’t sure that I was going make it as towards the top that stairs are actually wire mess and it’s a long way down…! As you can see from the photos, we did have a beautiful and sunny clear day so when we got to the top we could see a lot of London. We also were given a free tour of the cathedral by one of the friends of st pauls, she was a gorgeous little old lady, but she did seem to keep tuning out of this world and staring into space….but she knew a lot when she came back to earth. St Pauls has recently been cleaned and all the stone work has gone back to its original colour and the roof is all tiled with mosaics which again, are stunning!

After St Pauls, we had one last attraction to see and that was the tower of London where the crown jewels are kept. They actually have travelators in where the crown jewels are so that you can’t stand for too long in front of them! We had one of the beefeaters take us around on quite an amusing tour, but still with lots of historical knowledge.

And, yet again it was time to farewell London discover Northern Ireland!!

Paris

Paris was one of the cities that we were looking forward to the most. Not only because you hear so many great things about paris such as it’s the ‘city of love’ yadda, yadda yadda, but also because this was where we were meeting my dad who was going to be travelling around with us for the next couple of weeks.

Jay and I headed to Paris 2 days earlier than my dad so we had more time and so that we could find our way around the city before dad arrived as he only had 2 days in paris with us.

It is such a beautiful city and you could spend hours or even days just wandering around the city getting lost in all the different parts and the beautiful buildings and cafes on every street corner. Paris was by far, one of the most expensive cities that we had visited so far (excluding london of course!). One of the things that we had to do in Paris was sit at a café and people watch and have a café latte (or cappuccino)!! We did this and almost broke our daily budget and so we took photos of the occasion to remember it!!!

On our first day we did a city walk that we found in the lonely planet and it took us around some different parts of paris and to a particular point so that you could look across the city and just high enough above the other buildings. Paris is quite a low lying city with only 2 tall buildings so to get a point where you can look across the city is rare. We also visiting on our walking tour a great little food market (all our days out involve lots of food!!). We also went to see the moulin rouge.

The weather in Paris was certainly a lot cooler than expected. We only had 1 fine and perfectly sunny day and this was the day that dad arrived. Jay and I headed out to the airport to meet dad and show him the way back to our hotel and then it was time to get sightseeing! First stop, the Lourve. It is open late a few nights a week so we had plenty of time to look around and find the 2 most important things, Mona and the upside down pyramid. Of course it was quite a busy the day that we went so we went to see Mona Lisa straight away. When we got there, we were caught by surprise as the signs saying that no photos were allowed were turned around the guards who were standing next to it, did nothing to stop everyone taking photos and numerous flashes going off, so we snapped away!! After looking around the lourve, it was time to stock up on caffeine as we still had more sights to see, its amazing, but they actually have a starbucks in the lourve!

Next sight to see, was the arch du triumpe. We got to the top right (after something like 266 stairs) on dusk, so it has fantastic views of all of paris as all roads lead to this central point, it was very pretty with all the lights and the effifel tower all lit up. At 9pm every night there is a light show on the effifel tower, so we reserved a spot and waited for the light show – very cool, it sparkles all over! By this time, it was time to put dad to bed as he was fading fast…..
The next day we had an early start as we had lots to cover, first stop was the effifel tower. Unfortunately it was a particularly clear day, but as we were leaving the next day, it was today or nothing! As jay and I are on a budget, and its cheaper to climb to the 2nd stage and then catch the lift to the very top, we decided to do this. Dad wasn’t so keen after the climb the night before but decided it would be ok. It was quite a leisurely stroll up a couple of hundred stairs and once we got to the 2nd stage, it was time to get the life to the very top. The lift is actually a little bit scary going to the top as it just keeps going up and up and up and the feeling is quite weird in the stomach! Great view once you get to the top and the lift ride back down isn’t as bad!!!

We then went onto notre dame which is a massive church. Its very beautiful inside like a lot of churches in Europe, however the way that this one was built is quite amazing and the view on the outside is quite spectacular. There is also an archaeological sight underneath some of the church which used to be an ancient city which we also checked out.

The next day, it was time to catch the eurostar back to London to spend a few days there with dad.

London!!!

After such a long time on the go, it was time to get to know london at a more leisurely pace. We had the experts (ben & ness) helping us along. They set us up with the essentials for any londoner such as an oyster card and a tube map and, of course, how to get home to their place! Other important information to know in london such as not to go to the dodgy areas and don’t eat from the fried chicken from the shop down the road.

It was when we got back to London that Nay finally agreed to see a doctor about her tonsillitis. By this time, the tonsillitis had been around for about 3 weeks and it was now time to get drugs as it was obviously not going away. So, we consulted the experts (ben and ness) about how to see a doctor and a medi centre was the way to go. Its not as easy as in Australia to see a doctor as you need to be registered and make an appointment. Luckily the medi centres are walk in places and no appointment is needed. 89 pounds later (eeekkk!!!), we finally had some drugs and a much happier nay! (well apart from the doctor checking her ears, only to find out that the infection had reached there, and that the ear looking implement caused a huge amount of pain for nay whilst she was getting checked up, that tears flowed from her eyes!!)

We managed to get heaps of sleep in the week that we stayed with ben and ness and also took our time at learning to get our way around. London is a great city with lots to see and do. Ness gave us some great ideas of what to do during the day and also the good and the bad touristy stuff to do. We saw all the usual things, Houses of Parliament, Westmininster, the London Eye, Harrods, Oxford Street a couple of funny looking bridges etc……. We also spent an evening in Greenwich which is a cute little town/city/suburb (not sure what to call it) on the thames. There is a huge park there with an observatory which is also where the Greenwich Mean Time line is.

On the weekend, we also headed to Kent, where Ben’s mum lives. We met Ben’s little brother, Stan. While Ben was visiting his mum, we headed to Canturbury where there is a huge cathedral. Canturbury is a gorgeous little town with lots of little cafes and shopping! While we were in Canterbury, we found a little café/food shop called Nasons – what a great name!!

Ness also took us to Brighton for the day, which is basically where the beach is and the world famous brighton pier! Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very warm day (how unusual) so no swimming, but we did explore the pier and the beachside. It was completely packed and seeing we were kind of at a fair, it was time to eat like we were – as you can see from the photos we made ourselves completely sick on fairy floss and sugar soaked donuts!

So again, it was time to say farewell to ness and ben and time to explore paris and see dad!!!

Spain - Madrid, Valencia & Barcelona

After arriving back in Madrid after our busabout tour, it was time to explore Madrid. Madrid is a huge bustling city, which lots going on all the time. We stayed on the corner of the Gran via, which is basically the main road through the city. There were always lots of people everywhere (& lots of ladies of the night!)

On our first day in Madrid we decided it was time to see some art and get some culture. We visited the Prado art gallery which is a HUGE art gallery and basically took us most of the day to see it. Lots of interesting pieces of art and by some very famous artists such as Rembrandt. After visiting the art gallery is was time for a nap, looking at art is exhausting! We went to the largest park in Madrid (I can’t remember the name of it!) but it had a lake in the middle that you could hire little row boats and it took over an hour to walk from one end to the other, so that gives you an idea of the size of the park. The gardens were beautiful and so manicured, it was also very hot the day we went to the park so the thought of running through the fountains was becoming more and more tempting, but we did restrain ourselves.

Madrid is also well known for its shopping, particularly shoes. There are shoe shops on every corner and there are also some great clothing bargains. We didn’t buy too much and we could still lift our suitcases!

We also visited in Madrid, the old royal palace. It was amazing and soooo beautiful. All the ceilings were painted with artworks, there were even entire rooms made out of porcelin. Unfortunately we weren't able to take photos in the palace, but it was beautiful. The staircase was made out of marble and bannister was all gold.

Our next stop after Madrid was Valencia. We had planned to buy a train ticket on the morning to head to Valencia, and we arrived quite early and yet the whole train was sold out! We had 3 options, one of the options was to catch the slow train which wasn’t leaving until 12ish which would take about 5 or 6 hours to get to Valencia, the other option was to wait until 2pm for the fast train which would take 3 hours or go 1st class and have all the meals included in our trip. So, we decided to treat ourselves and go first class!! It was great, we were completely spoilt with everything included and therefore we arrived in valencia in style!

Valencia is an interesting city. There is an old city and a new city but the old city seems like a completely different place altogether. Unfortunately Nay was quite sick with the usual tonsillitis and could barely move one of the days so we did have to take it quite slow. We did get a bit worried at one point that she had contracted malaria as the body aches, fevers and headaches were so bad, but luckily she picked up and there was no need for a hospital visit. The one cool thing about Valencia is that it has a dry river bed running through the entire city which has been turned into parkland. You can hire bikes and ride around the park, however we just went for a stroll!

Next, it was onto Barcelona, the 1 city that jay and I had been looking forward to visiting for some time. The train trip was great, some of the trip went along the ocean and there were some great views along the way. Barcelona is another bustling city with people everywhere, particularly in La Ramblas which is the main street in the city, which is full of restaurants (where you can people watch for a price!) and street artists etc. There was also a massive food market where jay and I went everyday for our morning coffee and sometimes lunch. The food was so fresh that they cook it all in front of you. We also visited the Picasso museum which also had a special photography exhibition which showed photos into his private life that one of his friendsnds had taken, it was excellent!

On our last day in Barcelona, we went on a day trip to monserrat which is about 1.5 hours out of barcelona. Basically there is a monastry on this huge mountain and the rocks are in a very unusual formation. We had to catch a cable car to the top of the mountain which took 40 people (very squishy)!!!! From the top of the mountain, there were fantastic views and it was great to see into the lives of the monks that live there and the history.

Spain - Madrid, Toledo, Granada & Seville

It has now been a few weeks since our last post and since then we have been back to the UK for an overnight stay and have been travelling around spain. I also forgot to mention in the previous post that on the way back from uganda, we stopped in on dubai again for a 2 day stay and managed to catch up with one of jays mates from uni, chris. He works at one of the very plush hotels in dubai and is the transport manager for them. 2 other girls that also went to uni with jay also work there. Chris also had the day off when we were there and we manged in 1 day to visit 5 of the 7 emirates. There isn´t much past dubai except sand and mountains, but we did drop in on a new hotel in fujerah (sp??) which is about 2 hours from dubai. As you can imagine temperates soared to around 47 degrees.....boiling hot!

We also had dinner with chris and his gf, gloria, at a very classy joint call JamBase which is a supper club in dubai. All very funky and they had jazz music playing all night and dim lighting etc....great night and fantastic food! It was located in the Madinat Jumeriah which is part of the complex where chris and gloria works, so we had the added bonus of getting 50% off the entire night!


So, onto spain......


As usual on the trip there we had a delay... this was because there was foggy weather in London on the morning of the day that we left... didnt seem like it from where we were staying, so we had a lovely time sitting in gatwick airport for about 2.5 hours with everyone else whose flights were delayed.


We finally got to madrid airport at 1:30am.. and the attempts to get a reasonably priced taxi started. We had issues with about 3 drivers in the arrivals lounge about the fare to the Hotel ibis madrid airport. we could see the building from the airport but had no clue as to the roads that we needed to use to get there, but were not going to pay 20 euros for the 1-1.5km journey. we finally were able to bargain with a taxi driver from the departures lounge with the help of a spanish speaking guy that also knew english and was able to translate for us, so that we only had to pay 10 euro´s. so by the time we got to the hotel, checked in a very tired nay and jay had a quick 4 hour kip then went to pick up the busabout tour from a hostel in the city. this was a 20 euro taxi drive that also has a story.. but for another time!.


we got dropped of about 100 metres from the hostel as the roads are funny and dont always allow traffic on them. we walked this 100 metres that contained 4 less savoury stores and about 20 of the less savoury workers on the sides of the road. so far we have had a great intro to spain!!


The busabout tours started with a drive to toledo, about 2 hours from Madrid. It's a beautiful little city that is famous for its steel swords and marzipan. As it was a rather early morning we had brekkie here and gave us hot chips, eggs and sausages.....how healthy....there is also a really large cathedral here (like most european cities). As the cathedral took such a long time to build, it actaully has different types of architecture, so some of it looks gothic, while the rest has lots of sandstone, but you can really tell the difference.

Next, it was onto Granada, which is a university city, which of course means cheap drinks, but what we didn't realise until we got there, this also meant a full plate of tapas with every drink, therefore, not really any need for dinner! This was one of our favourities, so beautiful and relaxed. We also saw a flamenco show with the tour group which was awesome, the not so awesome bit was the start time of 11.30pm after being up so early.

We spent 2 nights in Granada and on the 2nd day of the tour we visited the Alahmbra, which is a huge kingdom, castle thingy....hard to explain, but it has a massive mosque. It took us 3 hours to see the entire place if this gives you an idea of the size. Lots of history of course and photos will show what we mean about the size.

The busabout tour was great, pretty much everyone was australian, and like us, young and out travelling the world. The dynamic was of course very relaxed and was lots of fun....would definately do a busabout loop/tour again. They are slightly different to contiki as they don't run entire tours, just basically provide the bus and guide and the rest you do yourself.

After Granada, we were onto seville. The further we went down, the hotter it got. Jay and I had the pleasure of being on the top floor of hotel we were in, so thats like 10 sets of stairs and no lift, so glad we travelled light. We managed to visit the bull ring in seville and they were so proud to tell us that only 1 person has died in their ring.

Of course, there is another massive cathedral in seville. This one is quite amazing as it used to be a mosque and has been converted to a cathedral. We did a walking tour in seville which was fantastic. That night the entire group went for a drink on a hotel rooftop which looks back to the cathedral. As it was a public holiday the following day, all the bells of the cathedral were ringing that night and what a sound that was!!!!!

After seville it was back to madrid.....a huge bustling city, with lots of great gardens and art gallleries......more to follow soon - valencia and barcelona...

Uganda - Part 2

well here goes for part 2 of uganda.

I don´t think we mentioned the babys home in part 1. We visited the babys home a few times in our stay in uganda. It is called watoto, bulrushes babies home and has only been open since january 2007. Already, it has 37 children in this home. Most the children have been left at the hospital or dumped in the city. There was one child who had been dumped in a cemetry and he was only a week old and had HIV. While jay and I were there on our last day, 2 girls were dropped off as there mothers had just been sent to jail. The children are so well looked after and range from 1 day old to about 3 years old. They kids are happy for you to play with them for as long as you can. Jay and i became quite attached to a set of twins, their names were zac and zoe. They were beautiful and cried everytime we put them down which was a little bit heartbreaking. Unfortunately you cannot adopt children from uganda unless you have lived there for 3 years, otherwise I think jay and I would be on our way home with them already! Jay also had the pleasure of being spewed on while we were at the babies home as he was feeding the kids too quickly! He really like the smell of the spew and was worried he was going to as well in sympathy, so we went and bought a new t-shirt for him (he still needs a little practice)!

On the last few days in Uganda when we were still in gulu, our host, Apollo came down with a dose of malaria. He was very ill and couldn´t even travel back in the car with us as the aches and pains were too much. He was admitted to hospital when he finally got back and we went and visited him the following day. Lets just say that i would never want to get sick in uganda ever. He was in an éxpensive´ clinic but it was very basic to say the least. No food is provided and it is up to your family to come and take care of you. Basically they only provide a drip and a very basic bed. No fly screens on the windows or mosquito nets over the bed and therefore you could get malaria again even though you are being treated for it. We saw apollo 2 days later and he was still in the same clothes as no hospital clothes are given out either.

I think thats it for now......spain here we come!!!!!

Uganda

We are now back from Uganda and the last few weeks have absolutely flown! I think we managed to squeeze an awful lot into a few weeks and were completely blown away by everything in Uganda.

The first few days in Uganda were a bit scary, as all the security guards and lots of people on the streets carry massive rifles. We even had a security guard with a rifle patroling our guest house each night. I was a little freaked out by this for the first few nights as i was thinking what if i scard the security guard or something, would he shoot at me?!

Anyways, our first task for Uganda was to build a house. It was hard work as each brick weighed about 5kg. We were very sore after the first day and our backs were certainly feeling it, but Rob, who was the building in the team, gave some great tips on how to stretch it all out! The house took about 5 days to build. The only thing that we didn´t complete was the roof, as contractors come in and complete this later. The house was complete with door frames and windows!

We have the privilege of visiting my mums sponsor child, Donas in the south of Uganda in a place called Mbaraba, which is about 4.5 hours from the capital city of kampala. On the day of the vist, we were picked up incredibly early by our driver who then drove us to the south. We were met at a hotel by Donas, her sister, Doreen and Christina who works for the project which Donas is connected to. It was a long drive on dirt roads to Donas´house and no one told us that she lived at the top of a mountain which we had to climb! We met Donas´ mum and she explained the situation of the family which is very sad, as the father died of maleria and the eldest son, who they were relying on to bring in an income for the family, died in an accident a few years ago and now the mother needs to support 9 children. The only child of the family that goes to school all the time is Donas, as the other children only go when the mother can afford it. The family also have only a small home and no mosquito nets. We realised that if Donas was not sponsored this family would have nothing. I encourage all of you to sponsor children as its not until you see the situations that these familys are in, that you can see the difference. When you sponsor a child, you are not only supporting the child, but the entire family. The family was incredibly generous and made gifts for us and nays entire family, plus they gave us a pineapple and paw paw to thank us for coming all the way to see them. By this time, jay and I had streams of tears and all through our video all you can hear are our sniffles! In Uganda, whenever you visit somewhere, they use the phrase ´you are welcome here´, Donas´mum kept saying this to us and hugging us, all very overwhelming.....plus Donas wouldn´t let go of my hand!!!

After our return to Kampala, the next day we were heading to Gulu, which is in the northern Uganda, about 20km from the sudan border. Previously, it has been incredibly dangerous in gulu due to the LRA (Lords resistance army) controlling this area and kidnapping children and turning bascially into killing machines that would go and terrorise their families and villages. Peace talks are now happening and the leader of the LRA has now fled with his family to Sudan. I had seen a documentry on the gulu area and was a little scared about going up their, especially seeing ´smart traveller website´says DO NOT TRAVEL TO NORTHERN UGANDA!!!! I was reassured several times by our host that it was ´very very safe naomi´.

Kampala Pentecostasl Church has now opened up a KPC - Gulu church which we attended the opening service. It was full of energy and hope for the changes which are now starting to happen in Gulu. Watoto hopes to start building another village in gulu in january next year.

In gulu there are IDP camps which stands for internally displaced people camps. These are full of people who have fled their homes in the country to seek safety near the city. There are about 15,000 people in each camp and there are 50 camps which equals of lot of displaced people. We stopped at one of these camps and were completely surrounded by the children within seconds. You could tell that some were sick as they were dripping with sweat and just didn´t look healthy and clean. A lot of the homes in these camps are child run homes, as their parents have either died or abandoned them, so watoto hopes to place some of these children in watoto homes when the village is built.

So much more to tell, however time is running out, stay tuned for Uganda part 2!!